


one door closes, another door opens

by monstermash



Series: caine, take the wheel [1]
Category: Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines (Video Game)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, M/M, Minor Character Death, Slight Canon Divergence, but not too much, rating may or may not go up, tho i try to keep it at a minimum while writing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-24
Updated: 2017-11-06
Packaged: 2019-01-22 03:38:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12472624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/monstermash/pseuds/monstermash
Summary: He's heard the saying "When one door closes, another door opens."He wants to call bullshit on it, because it isn't always true. Sometimes when a door closes nothing else opens, or sometimes nothing has to close for a door to open.Of course, there's more to the saying, though hardly anyone ever mentions that part.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i'll try to update the tags as the story goes along and i'm sorry for any characters that seem ooc since this is my first time writing them.
> 
> i was p surprised that there wasn't a lot of fic for vtmb because it's such a good game. i hope we'll get a remastered version of it someday or maybe even a sequel but who knows.
> 
> (i also took some stuff out, very small stuff, mostly because it didn't quite fit with the way i'm writing this. i may add them back in later and slightly changed to fit into the story, idk)
> 
> (also i really love the malkavians, but i kinda hate the way the male malkavian looks in game lmao)
> 
> [here](http://quotes.yourdictionary.com/articles/who-said-when-one-door-closes-another-opens.html) is the rest of the quote from the summary
> 
> EDIT (3/27/18): wow i can't believe i forgot to link the playlist for this??? it's been around since october but i guess i thought i already linked it on here? anyway [here it is](https://8tracks.com/edmunderson/one-door-closes-another-door-opens)

He’s not even really sure why they’re all here.

Not in a ‘what is the meaning of life’ kind of way, but why they’re all gathered in LaCroix’s dusty old theater. As in bad a shape the place is in, at least he feels more at home here than he would at some ritzy place for the rich and powerful.

There’s a quiet murmur all around from the others who had been summoned here by the ‘Prince.’ His head drops back against the seat and he lets out an irritated huff. There are more important things for him and the other Anarchs to do than sit around on LaCroix’s whim.

It’s only when the whole place falls silent when the stage’s curtains pull back does he sit up.

On stage are a few of LaCroix’s lackeys and two Malkavians on their knees, arms bound behind them, front and center. The Malkavian who is awake he recognizes. He doesn’t know her name, never talked to the lady, but he’s seen her hang around with a few Anarchs here and there.

“Good evening, my fellow Kindred,” LaCroix announces as he strides across the stage, wooden floorboards creaking slightly with every step. “My apologies for disrupting any business or interfering with prior engagements you may have had this evening.”

“Pretentious jackass,” Damsel mutters next to him. He himself stays silent, eyes tracking the Sheriff’s movements as he moves onto the other side of the conscious Malkavian, though the other one, the young man, looks like he’s finally waking up.

“It’s unfortunate that the affair that gathers us here tonight is a troubling one. We are here because the laws that bind our society – the laws that are the fabric of our existence – have been broken…”

“Does he ever get tired of hearing himself talk?” Skelter whispers.

The answer to that is ‘probably not.’

“As Prince, I am within my rights to grant or deny the Kindred of this city the privilege of siring. Many of you,” LaCroix gestures vaguely to the audience, “have come to me seeking permission, and I have endorsed some of these requests. However, the accused that sits before you tonight was not refused permission. Indeed, my permission was never sought at all. They were caught shortly after the Embrace of this childe.”

LaCroix steps to the side and points at the other Malk, a young man whose blue and brown eyes are now open, but look hazy and unfocused and… _shit._ He probably hasn’t been turned longer than a day. No, way less than that, barely a few hours if the confusion is anything to go by.

“It pains me to announce the sentence, as… up to tonight I considered the accused a loyal and upstanding member of our organization.”

_Yeah, you look_ real _torn up about it,_ he thinks with a roll of his eyes.

“But as some of you may know, the penalty for this transgression is death. Know that I am no more a judicator than I am a servant to the law that governs us all. Let tonight’s proceeding serve as a reminder to our community that we must adhere to the code that binds our society, lest we endanger all of our blood.”

The Malkavian woman struggles against her bonds, sneering at LaCroix when he kneels to say, “Forgive me.”

“Let the penalty commence,” LaCroix orders and one of his toadies grabs the woman by her shoulders, holding her still as the Sheriff lifts and then brings down his sword across her neck. As soon as her head is free of her body her remains fall into a heap of ash.

“Which leads to the fate of the ill-begotten progeny.” One of LaCroix’s underlings grabs at the young man’s dark curls, pulling his head up so the crowd could see his face. “Without a sire, most childer are doomed to walk the earth never knowing their place, their responsibility, and most importantly, the laws they must obey.”

Anger rises up in him. LaCroix better not. He fucking better _not._ The kid is barely hours into his unlife and that bastard LaCroix wants to cut it short without even giving him a chance.

“Therefore I have decided that –”

“This is bullshit!” he shouts as he abruptly rises from his seat, Skelter and Damsel rising with him, surprised expressions on their faces as they hold him back from storming the stage in fury. The others in the audience notice his outrage and begin to stand with him, all voicing their displeasure at the thought of one so young being killed for a crime they didn’t commit.

It’s somewhat comforting to know that the others are still willing to draw a line somewhere against LaCroix.

The man himself looks at them all, his face twisting as if he’s tasted something bad. LaCroix clears his throat before speaking again.

“If Mr. Rodriguez would let me finish.” The Prince glares at him before his face smooths back out into a bland expression. “I have decided to let this Kindred live. They shall be instructed in the ways of our kind and be granted the same rights. Let no one say I am unsympathetic to the plights and causes of this community. I thank you all for attending these proceedings, and I hope their significance is not lost. Good evening.”

His scowl deepens and he turns away from the stage, striding out of the theater, Skelter and Damsel following him.

He ignores the mismatched eyes of the Malkavian man watching him leave.

\---

Nines hears through the grapevine that the Malk was pretty much just dropped in Santa Monica by LaCroix to do the crooked bastard’s bidding. The whole situation sets him on edge because it’s basically the same damn thing it always is: the rich elite taking advantage of the little people.

The Malk may have been saved from a public execution but LaCroix was going to get him killed throwing him into the deep end like that.

Jack’s rough laughter pulls him out of that spiraling line of thought.

“I wouldn’t worry too much about the little maniac,” Jack tells him, easy grin on his face. “The kid’s a lot tougher than anyone gives him credit for.”

He believes Jack, he really does, because Jack has always been a good judge of character, but it doesn’t change the fact that the Malk has the odds stacked against him.

If he could he’d probably at least go check on the kid, make sure he hasn’t gotten himself into some deep shit, but as it is he’s so overloaded with work that he’s barely keeping up with it at all.

He sighs quietly, staring at the beer bottle half drained of its bloody contents that he holds in his hand. Doesn’t have time for a lot of things right now, but still, someone should’ve helped the Malk out with adjusting and he honestly shouldn’t have expected LaCroix to take it seriously.

“Hey now, wipe that sour look off your face. I showed the kid the ropes, so he won’t get offed immediately. He should at least last to the end of the week.”

He hopes Jack is right.

\---

A month later finds Nines on the rainy streets and back alleys of Santa Monica, the first free night he’s had in a long while.

The Malk isn’t the only reason he’s here. Word is that Therese Voerman is gone and Jeanette has made the city Anarch territory. That must have really pissed off LaCroix.

Heading down the side alleys to Jeanette’s club to see if the rumors are true, he pulls his jacket close around him, not to ward off the chill he doesn’t feel (hasn’t felt since he still had a heartbeat, decades ago), but to blend in with the people around him. It’s the subtleties like that that keep hunters away. Habits that aren’t necessary when you’re already dead but good to keep so as to not draw unwanted attention.

Turning the corner of the alley puts him at the club’s entrance, the music within making the door visibly shake.

With a deep breath he steels himself to enter.

The music and the bass is almost too much for him to bear and he almost turns around right then, but he’s gotta be sure the rumors are true, if Santa Monica is Anarch territory or not.

This kind of place isn’t somewhere he’d normally go, so he’s not completely sure of this, but he’s pretty sure that this many flashing lights and fog machines are overdoing it.

Nines doesn’t need to be here too long, just a quick confirmation about who runs this place now and he can leave. As he moves over to the bar the thick crowd of dancers parts briefly, he sees him, the fledgling Malkavian.

The guy dances like he was made for it, all eyes on him and he knows it if the smile is any indication. 

Mismatched eyes flick to his face, watching him as the Malk continues dancing, smile growing wider, teeth flashing in the colorful strobing lights, and he feels rooted to the floor. Blood rushing in his ears and if he still had a pulse he’d bet his face would be red from the unwavering attention from the fledgling.

He comes back to himself when the crowd of dancers closes up once more, blocking the Malk from view.

He heads over to the bar, wanting to get this done and over with so he can leave this place behind.

The heavyset man behind the bar tells him that Therese vanished weeks ago, leaving only Jeanette running the Asylum, but since Jeanette hasn’t made a big deal of her sister being suddenly gone no one’s kicked up a big fuss about it.

“If you want the details go bug Jeanette,” the man grunts before getting back to work.

Details he can do without, he got the answers he came looking for: Therese Voerman is gone and the fledgling is still alive.

Nines turns to go, to head back to L.A. and work some more instead of taking the rest of the night to relax for once (too much to do, always too much to do, he’s gonna burn himself out someday), but the Malk’s appearance stops him short. When did he get behind him?

The Malk doesn’t say anything, just smiles and tips his head towards the exit, before leaving, expecting him to follow. Curious as to what the kid could possibly want from him, he does.

The downpour outside has turned harsh, hard to see where one is going, but he follows the Malk easily enough. He’s silent as he leads the way to a diner that smells of cooking grease and burnt coffee.

The grey haired woman – Doris, he catches from her nametag – peers up at them from behind her glasses. “Be with you in a minute,” she tells them as she goes back to counting the money in the register. They sit in a booth by the windows towards the back and sit in silence for a few moments.

His mind drifts for a bit, watching a few people outside rush by in their hurry to get out of the rain and listening, but not really, to the music on the radio behind the counter.

“What brings you to the weeping lady’s city, numbered man?”

Nines looks away from the window to the Malk sitting across from him, brow drawing together in confusion. He knows Malkavians don’t always make sense when they speak, most talking in outlandish riddles, but it still blindsides him every time.

“Business. Checking in.” He keeps it short, to the point, because he’s not sure what else to say, if he should make small talk. Small talk has never been a strong point for him, even before he became what he is today. It’s always made him uncomfortable and he hates it.

Doris comes over then, saving him from having to say anything further.

“What’ll it be then, kid? The usual I’m assuming? And what about you?” 

“The same. Thanks.” He has no idea what the ‘usual’ is supposed to be. The kid has to be a regular here then for him to have a usual, which begs the question of why does he come in here often enough to have one?

“You come here often?” Nines asks and then winces at how that came out, how it sounds, but the kid just laughs, bright and airy.

“I like it here. It’s comforting and warm, slips over me like a second skin, like home.”

He lifts a hand from the sticky tabletop, brings his thumb and fore finger together before pulling them apart as the skin tries to stick together from whatever it is that’s left the table’s surface tacky, and raises an eyebrow in question. The kid just grins.

“I never said home was clean. Then again, it’s not like I remember much of it. It’s more of an abstract idea, like one of those paintings. Wishing, wanting, but never having.”

Doris comes back with two cups of coffee before leaving them alone with each other again. It smells terrible, like someone left it on the hotplate for weeks.

He frowns down at his cup, his reflection frowning back at him as he turns over in his mind what the Malk said.

“You don’t remember your home? Do you remember your life before?”

“No. It’s like a shark trying to do taxes. Clumsy and inaccurate.”

Doris returns once more with boxed up food and the check. Before he can ask the kid stands up and grabs one of the boxes.

“C’mon, Robin Hood, we’ve something to do before you’re needed. We only have a few fleeting minutes.”

He decides to just roll with it, rising from his seat and grabbing the other box of food. The kid leaves a $50 tip before heading to the register to pay for their untouched coffee and food. 

“Why’d you leave so much?” he asks as they step out into the rain and heading down the street.

“Doris Day needs the cheddar to keep the rats away.”

“Do you always talk in riddles?”

“It’s not a riddle,” the kid says, looking at him over his shoulder, one corner of his mouth hitching up in another smile. “I can say what I mean without needing anyone else to understand.”

Nines shrugs at that. The kid does have a point he supposes. 

“Alright,” Nines concedes then lifts up the boxed food. “But what about this food we can’t eat?”

“The food is for the one with bleached eyes from the valley sand and the wilted desert flower. They need it, but they’re lost here, so lost. Lots of things are lost here.”

They continue on in silence, the kid eventually taking them to a parking garage. Two humans are there, clothes in bad shape and themselves looking like they haven’t had a shower in a while. The kid holds out his box of food to them and he does the same. The humans – they’re young, can’t be much older than maybe twenty – tentatively reach out and take the boxes from them before scurrying away up into the stairwell.

“They want to go home, but they can’t, not for a long time,” the Malk tells him, voice heavy with sadness as he heads back the way they came in, towards the garage’s entrance. They both stop short of being out in the rain again, the florescent lights behind them casting their shadows into the gloom of the night.

The kid looks at him, one brown eye so dark it’s almost black, the other an eerie ice blue, and he can’t help but wonder which one was the original color. A small smile grows on the Malk’s face, replacing the sadness that had been there only moments before. The Malk tugs on the sleeve of Nines’ jacket, eyes never once leaving his. 

“The heart of the dark city of angels calls you,” he tells him. “A busy bee that never stops working, always focused on what he needs to gather, but the reward will be worth it, sweet like honey. There’s a sickness spreading in the flowers. An answer from a red spider that sings like a canary. Keep hold of your face, man of numbers, someone wants to borrow it.”

The Malkavian tugs the sleeve of his jacket again, bringing Nines a stumbling step closer, and pressing a fleeting kiss to his cheek before disappearing into the rain, leaving him standing there alone and slightly dazed.

It’s only when he’s halfway back to downtown L.A. that Nines realizes he never got the kid’s name.

\---

He can still feel soft lips pressed against his skin, like a phantom limb.

Nines tries not to think about it too much, keeps himself distracted with his work.

He still thinks about it.

\---

Roughly a week and a half later is the next time he sees the Malk.

The CDC started showing up a few days back when people started getting sick out of nowhere, something wrong with their blood. Damsel said she was looking into it, but turned up nothing except for something about a cult that moved into an old building a few neighborhoods over and someone’s been snatching people from the streets during the night. And of course the obvious problem of CDC being out and about.

He volunteers to play bait because people getting taken off the streets without anyone noticing is, in itself a problem, but there’s always the chance that it might be connected to the new blood disease.

Nines is out walking the streets of L.A. when the Malk shows up. He can’t tell if it’s bad luck or good luck that he happened to be on the same block when the kid gets a bat to the head after getting out of a taxi and going down like a sack of bricks.

Damn Sabbat making an appearance. More and more of them are popping up around the city and getting bolder all the time. Just another thing added onto the growing pile problems.

He draws his gun and fires a warning shot at them. Well, if intentionally clipping the side of the ringleader’s head counts as a warning shot.

“Son of a bitch!”

“Leave.” He orders, keeping the barrel of his gun trained on the Sabbat he fired at.

“There’s three of us, Rodriguez.” The other two start jeering and mocking, trying to seem threatening. Nines only has to gesture to the grenade he keeps on him and they quiet down.

“This ain’t over,” the leading Sabbat tells him before looking down at the kid who’s eyes are still rolling from the hit to the head. “We’ll find you. You too, Rodriguez. You’re both dead! Nobody messes with the Sabbat and lives.”

He’s really not impressed with these guys. “Keep moving.”

Nines stays rooted in place and doesn’t drop his aim until the Sabbat thugs slink away into the night, out of sight.

“Trouble sure seems to like you,” he says as he helps the kid up onto slightly wobbly feet. “You look like shit.”

“Name’s Nines,” he adds, unable to remember if he ever actually introduced himself or not the last time they met back in Santa Monica.

“What happened to one through eight?”

“Same thing that happens to a lot of Anarchs, Malk. But I’m guessing you already know that.” It’s only after he’s spoken that he hears how harsh it sounds… well maybe it’ll teach the kid to be more cautious around here. “Should’ve been more careful, this ain’t the burbs.”

The kid tilts his head, as if listening to something in the distance, but Nines doesn’t hear anything. Probably hearing voices like a lot of other Malkavians do. He shrugs, putting his gun back in its rightful place. He needs to get back to making the rounds on the streets, trying to lure out the people snatcher.

“Look, I got things to deal with. Why don’t you pay me a visit at the Last Round tonight? I don’t know what you’ve heard so far, but it’s time you heard the real story.”

Talking seems to draw the kid’s attention. The Malk keeps quiet, only nodding at him with a smile.

“This is a mean existence. Stay out of trouble, kid,” Nines says over his shoulder when he turns to go.

“Watch out for wolves,” the kid calls after him.


	2. Chapter 2

It’s been a couple weeks and the CDC has left, the weird blood disease no longer a threat since it isn’t spreading anymore. Most of the carriers died off as well as the ones who had been infecting people with it. The CDC and the threat of a plague caused by that cult all gone thanks to the Malk.

Nines still makes the rounds through the neighborhoods, though now it’s due to the Sabbat encroaching on L.A. The kid joins him more often than not, though he doesn’t always stay the entire time, sometimes leaving early or joining late due to other things.

“Had to see a man about an arm,” he’ll say, or, “Vulcan plagues Venus, I must go.”

Despite the kid’s weird ramblings he’s gotten pretty used to having company. He thinks he’ll make a decent Anarch. Nines still doesn’t know him too well, but the kid always seems ready to help people, not just the others of their kind, and that makes him good in his book. That and the Malk has been giving Damsel as much information as he can on LaCroix’s plans, so that’s a plus.

So far tonight the kid hasn’t shown up yet. He’s not too worried, things have been relatively quiet and the Malk _is_ capable of taking care of himself. What does have him worried though is that someone is watching him. Nines hasn’t caught sight of them yet, but whoever is watching him hasn’t done anything malicious. 

Yet.

Sometimes he’ll catch sight of red hair and glasses, and only once sees black hair that’s pinned up, but the face is blurred together. He keeps a steady pace, doesn’t look back too often, trying to lure his tagalongs closer so he can find out what their deal is, but they never come closer.

When it’s a few hours from dawn he heads back to the Last Round, to his small apartment above the dive bar. As soon as he sets foot onto the street the sensation of being watched, of being followed, dissipates.

For now he shrugs it off as some Camarilla flunkies who are really bad at their job, at least until there’s something to prove otherwise.

He moves about his apartment (it feels like too much space sometimes for just him, which in today’s standards Nines knows it really isn’t, but he remembers the first place he lived in when he arrived in California all those years ago, and this place compared to that feels kind of too much), drawing close the blackout curtains. He really doesn’t need a repeat of what happened the last time he forgot to close the curtains, doesn’t want to have to edge awkwardly around rectangles of light if he gets up too early.

There’s a weird knot of something in his chest as he does this, as he turns out all the lights, as he strips down to his undershirt and boxers, as he crawls into bed. Nines stares at the ceiling for a long time, trying to fall asleep while also thinking about where the Malk could’ve been last night, about what kind of problem might’ve kept him busy and away all night, about a lot of other things.

He groans as he turns onto his side and shoves his head under his pillow. He needs to stop thinking and sleep, there’s no point in staying up late and worrying about something he can’t do anything about right now.

Nines manages to quiet his mind enough to drift off, but there’s something heavy like a rock resting behind his ribs, making his dreams strange and off-putting.

\---

Rarely are his dreams this weird.

Usually Nines dreams of very specific things, hyper focused on small details, which range in variety. Occasionally he’ll dream of cornfields from the farm he grew up on, before a black blizzard ravages everything in sight. Basically his dreams tend to be of things he knows, things that make sense.

This however, makes no sense to him at all even though he _knows_ he’s not awake.

He’s sitting on rickety steps of the farmhouse’s porch, his granddad sitting on a rocking chair he’ll always remember as being vividly blue, while his brothers and cousins are causing a ruckus inside. The sky is clear and bright. This is the only way he can see daylight now, in dreams of old memories.

In the distance he can see someone walking up the dirt road, but they’re too far for him to see.

 _“Do you know who’s coming up the road?”_ his granddad asks as he packs his pipe with tobacco. He looks over his shoulder at his granddad before looking back to the road.

“Can’t see ‘em, they’re too far away.”

His granddad hums in response as he lights the pipe, hazy eyes looking to the fields of corn and wheat.

 _“There’s a storm coming. No duster like I’ve ever seen,”_ his granddad says when he sees him looking to the horizon with confusion. _“A storm of blood coming to the desert, a mountain of bodies piling up higher than an ivory tower. Blood on everyone’s hands, a death on everyone’s conscience, people playing for power over a corpse in a strange coffin. You chose a dangerous game to play, mijo.”_

His mouth has gone dry and a sense of dread is crawling up the back of his neck. 

“What?”

_“Our visitor is drawing closer, mijo. Can you see who it is?”_

He looks again, and yeah, whoever it is walking up the road has gotten closer, but he still can’t see their face. To him, whoever it is just looks like a red blob against the scenery.

“No, I can’t granddad.”

_“That’s too bad, but it will become clear in time. The signs are all there, mijo, plain as day. Do you see them?”_

He shakes his head. He doesn’t understand what he’s supposed to see, what signs are apparently plain to see.

 _“Oh, they’re here,”_ his granddad says. He turns from his granddad to see a giant red fish standing in front of him. A giant red herring to be specific.

Of course.

He groans as he buries his face in his hands.

“A giant red herring. Sure, why not? Because of course my own mind has to be heavy handed with symbolism while not making any sense. I’ve been hanging around the kid too much.”
    
    
    “Why Mr. Rodriguez,”

the red herring says with a layered voice that makes his head hurt and its dead eyes swiveling around in their sockets at a sickening pace,
    
    
    “What poor manners you have.”

His jaw juts out slightly as he bites down on the inside of his cheek. There’s no way he’s gonna get into an argument with a talking fish, even if it is just a dream. His granddad lets out a hearty laugh that draws his and the fish’s attention.

_“Always so stubborn you were. It’s time to wake up.”_

 

Gone are the farms of Oklahoma when Nines wakes up. Instead the ceiling fan of his small room spins lazily overhead and the red numbers of his alarm clock tell him it’s about an hour before the sun sets. The phrase “one door opens, one door closes” trapped in his thoughts.

Heaving a heavy sigh and wiping away the cold sweat from his forehead, Nines gets out of bed.

\---

This time the Malk shows up at the Last Round early in the night, the leaden weight in his chest slipping away when the kid smiles at him.

“The jester had me grave robbing on the high seas,” the Malk tells him when they head out the door to make the nightly rounds. “He’s a strange one, so interested in those who are deader than he is.”

And just like that it’s as if the Malk hadn’t even been gone the other night.

They walk for some time, keeping an eye out for anything out of place or for any Sabbat. The Malk continues with his half coherent ramblings and it washes over Nines like a tide of comfort. A strange comfort, but one nonetheless and honestly he really doesn’t mind that he doesn’t understand even half of what is being said.

Of course this is also when the feeling of being watched from the previous night comes back.

The kid is saying something about spaces in between spaces where reality is thin and distorted (‘liminal spaces’ they’re called. Nines won’t find that out until later back at the Last Round) when Nines looks back over his shoulder to see a flash of bright red hair duck into an alley. He stops, ready to go tell whoever it is to knock it off, but the Malk leans in close to whisper in his ear.

“She is no threat. A little moth drawn to a flame that shines red like blood, confusing obsession for love, but it will pass with time when the poison passes through until there is no trace of it left. In time this will seem nothing more than a fever dream.”

He looks away from the alley to the Malk, to the mismatched eyes watching him. “You know her then?” Nines asks as they resume walking.

“In passing,” the kid answers. “I was saving the fleet footed god when I happened to cross her path. She was dying from losing too much blood so I gave her some of mine.”

“So she’s your ghoul then?”

The Malk shakes his head, mouth curled slightly as if he’s tasted something bad.

“No, she is not my anything. I don’t want to own anyone; I do not wish to hold a leash. She was dying and I did not want to see such a bright future flicker out. Right now she acts erratically, obsessive, but that is because of my blood. The longer she goes without drinking from me, the easier it will be for her to return to her life.”

He sneaks a glance behind them and sees her. She’s doing a poor job of trying to blend into the crowd. “You sure about that?”

“I am.”

The Malk says nothing more and Nines leaves it be. Eventually the sensation of being watched by their tagalong slips away. He raises an eyebrow as he glances at the Malk.

“She saw another us head a different way. They’ll lead her back to safer roads for the night. We have other company coming,” the kid tells him, nodding his head at a group of three ahead of them. Nines recognizes them, they’re same three Sabbat who ambushed the kid all those weeks ago.

The ringleader grins at them, though it looks more like he’s baring his teeth, his laugh sounding like broken glass.

“Told you we’d find you.”

\---

Christ does this bring back memories.

Fighting in L.A.’s alleys, the sound of fists hitting jaws, of trashcans getting knocked over and rolling away; it reminds him of his first year in L.A. He can hear the blood singing in his ears with every hit, every snarled curse, and it’s been too long since his last fight.

He’d nearly forgotten how good it feels to just let go, even for a little while.

The Malk is holding his own well enough it makes Nines wonder if the kid used to get in fights like this before he turned or if he’s just a fast learner. 

Before too long the two underling Sabbat turn tail and run, leaving their leader behind. Nines comes back to himself (it’s a bit of a struggle, it always is) as the banged up vampire in front of him screams “Cowards!” before glaring at him and the Malk.

“You should run too,” Nines tells him, fists clenching and unclenching, nails digging into the flesh of his palms as he calms himself down from the high of fighting. A part of himself wants to finish this, to tear the Sabbat in front of him apart, but he won’t. It would be easy to give into that, but mercy is something he believes in strongly.

The Sabbat scowls at him, but knows the odds are against him and runs.

Nines watches him go until a thumb brushes across the cut on his bottom lip, drawing his gaze to the Malk as he sucks the blood off of his thumb and Nines inhales sharply at the sight. He grins, lopsided, at Nines and then Nines is hearing blood singing in his ears again and he wants.

He wants and he sees that same want in the Malk’s mismatched gaze.

Without a second thought (or any thought really) he curls a hand around the back of the Malk’s neck and draws him in close and then they’re kissing in a dirty L.A. alley. It starts out rough, the cut on his lip stinging with the way their lips press together and the Malk pulling him closer by the belt loops of his jeans, but changes into something slower, more deliberate as warmth (or something close enough to it) blooms and spreads in his chest.

Eventually, reluctantly, they both pull back, though not too far. 

There’s this weird sensation of being restless but settled at the same time, but he likes it, he really does. 

The Malk’s head tilts, listening to something Nines can’t hear, eyes glazing over briefly before coming back to himself and he kisses the corner of Nines' mouth before pulling away completely.

“A spider needs help luring a fly into her parlor,” the Malk says.

“A spider, huh? Isn’t that what webs are for?”

“There are many webs where she lives, but they’re too small for the fly. Maybe it’d be more accurate to call her a mantis than a spider,” the Malk muses aloud as they head back towards the crowded streets.

\---

A couple nights later he actually gets a good look at the red headed ghoul.

He’s returning to the Last Round by himself tonight, the Malk having to leave early due to the voices alerting him of someone else who was in need of help (though the kid didn’t look exactly thrilled by it, said he’d rather stay. Honestly, Nines wishes he’d been able to stay too, but he knows by now that it’s not in the kid’s nature to ignore someone he could help), and there she is at the bar looking like she’s maybe had one drink too many.

Nines can already feel a headache coming on when the ghoul catches sight of him and a look of stubbornness settles on her face.

“You!” she slurs at him, swaying dangerously as she gets up from her seat and he can hear Jack laughing from somewhere further in the room, obviously getting a kick out of what’s about to happen.

“Can I help you?” he asks with a strained half smile, because quite honestly, dealing with a drunken ghoul – a drunk _Malkavian_ ghoul with obsessive tendencies – is the _last_ thing he wants to be dealing with tonight.

She opens her mouth, clearly ready to just start ranting at him or something, but instead vomits over both of their shoes and then slumps onto him. Jack is howling with laughter and Nines sighs heavily, suddenly exhausted.

What a great way to end the night.

He gets her seated at a booth before going behind the bar to use the phone to call for a taxi. No way is he getting roped into playing babysitter all night. With the phone held between his ear and shoulder he starts rinsing the vomit off his shoes in the bar’s sink.

After hanging up the phone Nines heads back over to the booth he left the ghoul in, damp shoes hanging loosely from his fingers, and sits down across from her. They don’t speak; he’s too tired to try and she’s probably trying to not throw up again.

Despite the low lighting of the bar, Nines gets a decent look at the ghoul. She’s got a long, oval face and oddly arched eyebrows. The ghoul’s eyes have a strange look about them, like she’s always squinting them, though it could be that the glasses that are sitting askew are the wrong prescription or she’s so wasted that even the cheap lighting of the bar is hurting her eyes.

They sit silently in that booth for a long time, the ghoul sulkily glaring at him and he’s looking back at her with a tired, unimpressed expression.

It feels like an eternity and a half before the cab finally shows up and he helps her into it, hoping that this will be the last time he sees her.

\---

When he falls asleep just before dawn, he has another strange dream.

It’s still the family farm in Oklahoma, his granddad sitting in the blue rocking chair smoking a pipe, but this time the giant red herring is sitting on a creaking rocking chair, one that looks too old and rotted to be of any use.

 _"There's a ghost on Beverly Drive,"_ his granddad says to him as way of greeting. He can't help but look at the red herring as it tries to get its chair to rock and failing miserably at it.
    
    
    “It’s rude to stare, Mr. Rodriguez,”

the herring’s layered voice tells him as it stares back at him with its large fish eyes rolling around endlessly.

_“Don’t listen to them, mijo. They haven’t got a leg to stand on. All they have is built on rot.”_

He can feel the headache building up again, even in this dream, and looks back to the dirt road. There’s someone new coming, but much like before, they’re too far away for him to make out any details.

_“Another guest already? Can you see who it is, mijo?”_

“I can’t they’re too far away.”
    
    
    “Then perhaps you should use your eyes, Mr. Rodriguez.”

“Maybe you should stop stating the obvious.”
    
    
    “I wouldn’t have to if you would just look.”

_“Hey,_ his granddad cuts in, _“No fighting. Our guest is here.”_

He turns his head and… what the fuck? It feels as if all the air has been knocked out of him because their “guest” is him. A second him, but it doesn’t look right, half the face is drooping like paint that didn’t finish drying. 

The doppelganger tries saying something but it’s complete gibberish and the tone can’t stay consistent. It reaches out, as if trying to touch him, but a layer of its paint-like skin just sloughs off of its fingers and the grass around it dies when it lands. The hairs on the back of his neck stand on end; if it killed the grass then what would it do to him if it touched him?

His granddad tuts behind him.

_“That’s a bad omen, mijo. Bad luck is headed your way. I hope you’re ready for it.”_

 

Nines wakes up with a strangled gasp and jerks upright in his bed, tangled completely in the sheets. A glance at the alarm clock on the bedside table tells him it’s noon, way too early to be up, but the sheets are soaked through with sweat. With a groan he gets up to change them.

He idly wonders if hanging out with Malkavians causes weird dreams.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we find out the malk's name
> 
> also if any of y'all like heather poe im sorry. i'm not a big fan of her mostly cuz she really creeps me out and makes me uncomfortable cuz she pretty much is stalking you until you find her after the elizabethan rendevous and that's just a hard No from me tbh

Apartment 508 becomes incredibly familiar to Nines in the following weeks.

His familiarity with the place happens because the Malk noticed how distracting the noises of the Last Round could be for Nines when he had messages to decode from informants. Most of the time the cacophonous noise didn’t bother him all that much, but some nights it was too much, too jarring, and had him grinding his teeth in an attempt to drown it all out. 

(Sometimes it really is too much; too loud, too grating, gets him itching for a fight, makes him bite the inside of his cheek to keep from gnashing his teeth together. Needing the simplicity of blood on his knuckles and bruises on his skin, until he’s nothing more than a walking corpse – and he nearly laughs himself into hysterics because fuck, he pretty much already is one, and that’s one can of worms he doesn’t think he’s ever fully dealt with.)

The Malk, with his seemingly unending kindness, dragged him from the bar and into the nearest taxi to Santa Monica.

The apartment above the pawnshop is small, smaller than Nines’ place, but to him it also feels like it’s too big for one person, that if it were just him it would be far too quiet to focus. The kid seems to know this – somehow always knows the little details without ever needing to ask (probably the soundless voices the Malk hears tell him like how they tell him about those in need) – and crowds in next to him where he sits on the lumpy mattress and just starts talking, voice pitched low and soft.

Just talks about everything and nothing, not too quiet but not too loud, and it allows Nines to focus on finishing his work of decoding messages.

By the time he’s finished the Malk is curled into his side, head resting on Nines’ shoulder, and all is quiet save for the nighttime sounds of Santa Monica’s streets below them. He presses his mouth to the top of the Malk’s head, dark brown curls slightly tickling his face.

He feels calmer than he did earlier; the ever present need for some kind of violent action reeled back into something manageable, something bearable. Normally he’d deal with it by himself but it’s nice to have had help this time, to make it easier on himself.

“Thanks for this, kid.”

“Andy.”

“What?”

The Malk presses a hand to Nines’ chest as he shifts into a more upright position and then there’s mismatched eyes looking at him, a small smile that holds a lot of meaning in the way it curves.

“My name. It’s Andy.”

It dawns on him the kind of trust the kid – Andy – is showing him by offering up his name like this, like a gift and it really is. A gift from someone who only ever gives; gives himself, his time, his blood. 

His heart.

There’s a question in Andy’s eyes, asking if he’ll do the same and yeah, he thinks he can.

Nines leans in close, resting their foreheads against each other, and tells Andy the name he hasn’t used since he still had a heartbeat.

\---

He wakes when the sun is just starting to set, the sunlight bleeding out from under the curtains in a faint orange glow. With bleary eyes he looks at the face next to his on the pillow; Andy’s still fast asleep, completely unconcerned with the world and he kind of wishes he could sleep that peacefully.

Nines enjoys this though, being curled around each other under heavy blankets that give the illusion of trapped body heat even though they’re always going to be cold to the touch. 

Andy stirs slightly, when he lets out a content sigh, and mumbles something incoherent in his sleep before pushing his face into the side of Nines’ neck, like he’s trying to burrow into him. He snorts because it’s endearing even though the younger man is drooling on him a bit.

He should probably get up, start getting ready to head back to downtown L.A., but he doesn’t feel like disentangling himself yet, doesn’t want to wake up Andy. Instead he presses in closer and dozes for a while.

He can’t leave until the sun goes down completely anyway, so he might as well enjoy the peaceful quiet while he can.

\---

They spend a lot of time either at Andy’s apartment or his own.

There’s been a lot of time on their hands recently, LaCroix not really requiring Andy’s presence and there’s not nearly as much work as there used to be for Nines to do at the moment. At least, that’s what Damsel tells him when he tries to do something productive.

(She rolls her eyes at him and lightly shoves him towards the door. “Go. You need a break or else you’re just going to implode on yourself, Nines. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you relax the entire time I’ve known you. Come back in a couple of days, I’m sure there’ll be plenty of fires to put out by then.”)

It’s the happiest he’s been in a long time, and he thinks it’s the same for Andy, but he’s not entirely sure because the kid never talks about his life before he was turned. Either way, he wouldn’t trade these lazy couple of days for anything.

Nines doesn’t think he’s ever had a lazy day in his entire existence, living or dead, but if they make Andy smile like that, soft and bright just for him (the younger man’s nose scrunches up slightly when he grins and his mismatched eyes light up whenever he laughs), then he thinks he can get used to spending a day or two here and there doing nothing together.

\---

During the few days where there’s no pressing matters to deal with they sometimes roam the streets, sometimes feeding the strays of Santa Monica, other times sitting on the beach next to the pier.

“An old song beneath the fields of salt,” Andy says idly one night. “If you listen closely you can hear it reaching for the Moon. Twisting, reaching, grasping; Looking for a home that isn’t here anymore. They didn’t get to say goodbye.” 

“Did you?” he asks without elaborating. Nines knows the kid understands what he means.

“No, there wasn’t any time,” Andy tells him quietly, a sad smile on his face illuminated by moonlight and the neon lights of the pier. “This wasn’t asked for, but it’s not a given gift I hate. A woman stumbling in the streets, the crowd moving around her, ignoring the fact that something was wrong. A young man who couldn’t do anything less than help, naïve and foolish, should’ve heeded the warning signs. _‘I want to show you something,’_ but there was nothing there behind the eyes.”

It’s the most the kid has ever said about the night he was turned and it doesn’t make the picture any clearer, not really. 

\---

There’s a thick cloud of cigarette smoke and the stench of beer in the air of the Last Round as he looks through more coded notes. 

It’s a lot of the same really. A lot of “Chinatown front quiet. No one willing to talk about the Kuei-jin.” or “LaCroix’s still as tight lipped as usual. Will go on for hours about himself but as soon as the sarcophagus gets mentioned he clams up.” Hell, even the Sabbat are unusually quiet.

Everything’s at a standstill, a stalemate, and a lot of people are getting antsy from it.

Nines looks up from crumpling the latest “Nothing’s changed” message, lit cigarette hanging from his lips precariously, to see red hair coming up the bar’s stairs. At first he thinks it’s Damsel (and honestly he could really use a distraction of shooting the shit or just trash talking right now), but instead it’s the red headed ghoul. Again.

With a heavy exhale he can feel a scowl starting to settle on his face. He was really hoping she wouldn’t show up here again, but at least she looks sober this time so his shoes aren’t in danger of a repeat performance.

“What do you want?” he asks when she comes to a stop in front of the table he’s sitting at.

“What are you to him?” the ghoul asks him with an intense stare and yup, she’s still got that squinting thing going on. Maybe she really does have the wrong prescription. Or maybe she’s just bad at trying to be intimidating.

“Wow, you really get to the point, huh?” Nines kicks out a chair for her and she takes it, sitting across from him. There’s something off about her, but then again, there’s always something inherently off about Malkavians and their ghouls, though most are usually somewhat decent at hiding it. 

Her though, she doesn’t even try to hide it. If you look at her long enough you can clearly see there’s something unhinged about her and she seems to embrace it, shows it off like a peacock in a zoo. He taps his cigarette against the nearest ashtray, letting the ashes fall into it before answering her.

“It’s really none of your business what he and I are.” 

His answer just seems to frustrate her, because now she’s openly scowling at him, and don’t they make an angry pair? It makes him wonder how long this withdrawal period is supposed to last, because it’s been weeks since the first and only time she fed off of Andy’s blood and she’s _still_ behaving like this.

Then again, maybe this is normal for ghouls. It’s not like he’d know, he’s never made one.

“He told me that too,” she admits, looking away from his face and glares at the floor. His eyebrows shoot up in surprise at that because he thought she was still just awkwardly following the kid around.

“Well there’s your answer then. Why even come bother me about it?” Nines asks, curious now as to how she could’ve even come to the conclusion that he’d give her the answer she wanted.

The ghoul is quiet for a long time, refuses to look at him. He’s finishes his cigarette and lights another one by the time she finally speaks up.

“Because I want him,” she says so quietly that he nearly misses it, “Because I want him to want me too.”

Shit, she looks like she’s about to start crying, her green eyes shining with tears about to spill over when she finally looks at him.

“Because I love him and he won’t… He won’t feel the same way.” 

Nines sees it now, the obsession confused for love that Andy told him about all those weeks ago. He sees someone who’s lonely, someone who’s desperate need to be loved intensified by Malkavian blood. 

He sees someone who has apparently crossed a line somewhere along the way because when Andy comes up the bar stairs, a soft smile on his face for Nines that drops immediately when he sees the ghoul, the kid’s face twists into something that looks like frustration and something else that Nines can’t quite place.

The ghoul looks at Nines in confusion before she turns to see what he’s looking at. She seems to perk up at the sight of Andy even though it’s clear the kid isn’t so happy to see her.

“Oh, it’s you!” she says and this whole situation feels so damn surreal to him right now, because usually it’s Andy who is the embodiment of happiness while the ghoul is the one who never looks happy.

“What are you doing here? I told you to go home, to return to your life. Your grandmother worries about you.”

The ghoul shrugs it off and that feeling of wrong is coming back in full swing.

“I’ll do anything for you, just let me help you! I know I can be of use, let me stay with you,” she pleads. “Only you make me feel this way.”

She reaches out to Andy when she says the last part and the kid recoils from her. The ghoul looks stricken.

“I told you already, Heather, I released you from your leash. This needs to stop. Your future lies elsewhere.”

From the way Heather’s shoulders slump it looks like it’s finally sunk in her for her. Without another word she gets up and descends the stairs, though it looks like there are tears on her face as she goes.

When she’s gone, Andy seems to deflate. 

The kid sits down next to him and rests his forehead against Nines’ shoulder.

“Such a bright future,” Andy murmurs, “almost destroyed not by death, but by debilitating loneliness. She thought it was something it wasn’t.”

He wraps an arm loosely around the kid’s back, tugging him in closer and resting his chin on top of Andy’s head.

“Her thoughts being consumed by only one thing, her whole life revolving around it, defining her whole existence and worth around it until it would’ve been the only way she could’ve functioned. Her mind used to sing a beautiful song, but the blood changed it, made it wrong,” Andy says with a shaky voice and it sounds like he’s crying, but not out of pity or sorrow. 

No, it’s tears of fear and anger. 

It’s only then that it occurs to Nines that Heather’s blatant obsession and stalking tendencies actually had Andy terrified and that in turn scares him and any kind of sympathy he might have had for her goes out the window. He doesn’t know what to say (he’s pretty sure that if he opens his mouth right now he’s just going to put his foot in it no matter what he says) so he just holds the kid tighter, both arms wrapped around him now, and the Andy clings to him just as fiercely.

They remain silent and Nines is just glad that the second floor of the bar is empty because that whole situation really didn’t need an audience.

\---

A few days later everything goes to hell in a handbasket. 

It’s been a couple of nights since the whole thing that happened with that ghoul Heather and apparently that mess was just the calm before the storm.

LaCroix’s called for a blood hunt on him, accusing him of murdering Grout, which is fucking ridiculous because Nines hasn’t been anywhere near Grout’s damn mansion.

“Look, you don’t have time to sit here stewin’ in anger,” Jack tells him seriously, “It’s a damn blood hunt, you know what it means. Get out of dodge before midnight or else the Camarilla will be on you like flies on a corpse.”

“He’s right,” Damsel agrees, though she looks like she’s ready to go off any minute, ready to march down to LaCroix’s ivory tower and rip his head off. “We can deal with clearing your name after we get you out of here. Skelter and Jack can leave false leads about where you are.”

He looks at the clock over the bar; he’s only got two hours before it’s open season on him. Time isn’t the problem though, he can be gone in two hours easy. It’s a matter of where he can go where to lay low for a while where the Camarilla won’t find him.

“I think I know a place where no one would think to look for you,” Skelter says, “but I don’t think you’re gonna like it.”

\---

Skelter was right when he said Nines wasn’t going to like it.

Griffith Park. Griffith fucking Park.

 _At least no one’s going to look for me here. No one in their right mind anyway,_ he thinks to himself as he sits in the cable car and watches L.A. get further and further away. Griffith Park is known to be werewolf country and they don’t take kindly to vampires.

Then again, he’ll be the only vampire up there and he’s not planning on getting in their way or going too far into their territory so he should be fine. 

Probably. Hopefully.

And hey, maybe being away from L.A. will give him some perspective on this whole situation because it just doesn’t add up.

Nines has witnesses who can attest to his whereabouts when Grout was murdered, but then LaCroix has at least one person saying otherwise (whether or not they're being coerced is a factor as well) or else he wouldn’t have been able to call for a blood hunt at all.

He sighs, letting his head fall back against the cable car’s seat, and just lets his mind fall quiet, at least for a moment, as he looks at the city lights. After some time his mind wanders to thoughts of Andy and then it feels like the floor has disappeared from right under him because _fuck,_ here he is halfway to werewolf territory for the foreseeable future and as far as he knows Andy has no clue about any of this.

The strange dream version of his granddad was right, he really did choose a dangerous game to play and he really does have some bad fucking luck.

\---

That night after he holes himself up in the observatory’s small basement he dreams of Oklahoma again.

This time though, there are no new visitors and his granddad’s rocking chair is empty. The red herring is rocking madly in its rotted rocking chair, cackling hysterically the entire time as its eyes roll around so violently he thinks they’re going to pop right out. His doppelganger looks even more melted and deformed than before, an ugly grin on its face.

The nightmare ends when a twister of blood destroys everything in sight.


	4. Chapter 4

Days turn to weeks and weeks into a month, and he’d be a goddamned liar if he didn’t say he absolutely hates being stuck in Griffith Park.

It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great either; the werewolves leave him alone since he keeps to the observatory and doesn’t wander into the woods, but there’s not much for him to do except sleep and stare at Los Angeles’ skyline and wait for Damsel to send him information.

Unfortunately the situation hasn’t changed much. There’s still a blood hunt for him and as far as Damsel knows no one knows where Andy is. Apparently a few Anarchs and Camarilla went missing around the time the blood hunt was called.

_(“There’s always casualties in a hunt.” Nines remembers someone telling him that, years and years ago, but he can’t recall the face. “Someone gets too overeager, others just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”)_

Nines worries even though he knows he doesn’t need to, the kid can watch out for himself, and the fact there’s really no point in him worrying about something he can’t do anything about at the moment. But sitting around and waiting has never sat well with him, can’t stand sitting around doing nothing. He’s practically crawling up the observatory’s damn walls with anxiety and what is probably the beginnings of cabin fever because he’s _this_ close to just going into the woods and picking a fight with a werewolf just so he’ll have something to do, something to take his mind off of what’s going down in the city below them.

He leans back in the office chair he’s commandeered for the night, and sighs in exasperated frustration, pressing the heels of his hands against his eyes. This place is like his own personal purgatory with the way time seems to drag on and repeat the same nothingness every night.

It’s a struggle to remind himself why picking a fight with werewolves out of boredom is a bad idea, it really is.

(It’s also a struggle to force his mind to not think of the possibility that Andy is a casualty of the blood hunt, that someone killed him to get to Nines in hopes of drawing him out.)

\---

It’s New Year’s when something finally changes, when Andy arrives in Griffith Park.

“Well aren’t you a sight for sore eyes,” Nines says, relief and wonder welling up in him when Andy’s arms wrap around him because this means the kid is really here and that the isolation hasn’t finally cracked him. He lets out a shaky breath as he returns the hug because _fuck,_ he’d thought that Andy had become an unfortunate casualty of the blood hunt when no word came from Damsel about him (she’d promised to look, but couldn’t guarantee anything; there were others missing too and she was more focused on clearing Nines’ name).

After a moment he takes a step back, checking the kid over for any changes, any wounds, but there are none, he looks like he did the last time they saw one another.

“What are you doing here?”

“The jester has called off the hunt and wants help destroying the Kuei-jin, but it makes no sense to me; they danced under our noses like two foxes trying to outfox the other,” Andy tells him, brows furrowed as he reaches out, fingers lightly brushing the side of Nines’ face. “I told you to keep hold of your face. The demon queen of Chinatown stole it for a bloody act, but the words wobbled too much and gave the performance a poor review.”

“Wait, so you’re telling me I was framed by Ming Xiao and… I didn’t really catch that first part other than LaCroix wants to pick a fight with the Kuei-jin. Does he expect us to do all the fighting while the Camarilla throws mean looks from the sidelines? Or are they ready to go toe-to-toe with those damn devils?”

Because there’s no way in hell he’s gonna let the Camarilla sit back and watch as him and the Anarchs do all the dirty work.

No, wait… The real question here is why would LaCroix choose now of all times to go back to war with the Kuei-jin?

Unease creeps up his spine and only worsens when he catches the faint scent of something wrong in the air.

“Something’s not right… Smell that? Smells like smoke.”

“Rome wasn’t burnt in a day.”

Burnt… Something was burning… Oh shit.

“We gotta get out of here.”

If there’s one thing Nines knows pretty damn well is that werewolves don’t take kindly to having their territory catch fire, especially not when there are vampires conveniently nearby to take the blame.

There’s ash and embers falling on them now and the kid reaches a hand out as if it were snow instead a bad omen.

“What is this? A grey Christmas?”

“Kid, we’ve been followed. That fire’s coming from all directions – it’s man-made. We gotta get out of here – this is bad.”

“The fires are hiding something… A single soul sets his voice howling, calling others to his fury, an angry chorus beckoning. They’re all singing,” the kid rambles, taking a step towards the blazing forest and nope – that’s a bad idea all around. He grabs Andy’s wrist, keeping him from wandering any closer to the fire.

“Andy, no, we gotta get to the tram. That fire wasn’t set to kill us.”

But Andy remains where he stands, rooted to the ground and eyes glazed over.

“Something is coming,” the kid murmurs, eyes moving back and forth across the tree line but not catching onto anything.

“I didn’t hide out here because it was a nice view,” Nines tells him, trying to get Andy to focus on his voice instead of whatever the voices in the kid’s head are saying because they need to get out of here before it’s too late. “I did it because no one would come lookin’ for me in these parts. This is werewolf country. The wolves are gonna be out for blood for that fire. C’mon, move!”

Andy blinks and suddenly snaps back to himself, but it’s too late because when Nines looks over his shoulder the cable car is leaving without them.

“Shit! C’mon, we’ve got to get inside that building,” he says, pointing to the observatory, “until it comes ba--”

He gets cut off when he sees a blur of brown fur and a large set of jaws closes around his middle. A scream of pain is ripped out of him as he and the beast go tumbling over the rocky side and plummet towards the ground far below.

The last thing he remembers seeing before blacking out is Andy watching in horror and two more werewolves coming up behind him.

\---

He wakes up, sprawled across the porch, in the middle of a duster destroying the fields of crops on his family’s farmhouse in Oklahoma, thunder roaring and the high winds shrieking.

The doppelganger lies in sickly puddle, bubbling and smells of rot.

The red herring’s eyes have changed; the left one is LaCroix’s face and the right is Ming Xiao’s. It’s still sitting on its rotting seat, but the chair looks like it’s crumbling away, falling apart in earnest.

His granddad stands in front of the porch stairs, his back to him.

 _“You’re in the thick of it now, mijo. You and your man both. I don’t think he’s going to make it,”_ his granddad tells him solemnly. 

“No, he’ll be fine,” he says, throat dry from the smoke and ash. “Andy will pull through.”

_“How do you know? You saw how that forest was burning, how those wolves were sneaking up on him. He has no way to escape; that observatory is a flimsy defense against those beasts. He’s going to die up there.”_

“I don’t know, but neither do you, granddad. I can’t just give up on him so easily because--”

_“Because you love him. You thought he died during the blood hunt and it ate you up inside. Guilt – because what if he got killed because of you? – and heartbreak because you can’t bear to lose him.”_

“Yeah,” he admits, voice weak as he swallows around a lump in his throat. “Guess I gave too much of my heart, huh?”

His granddad chuckles. _“Oh mijo, when it comes to loving someone you either give your entire heart or not at all.”_

The duster draws closer, turning from a dull grey-brown to a vividly bright red, the storms shrieks too loud in his ears.

 _“Time to wake up, mijo,”_ his granddad says as he turns to face him. _“You’ve got a wolf to fight and the jaws of death to escape.”_

 

Nines eyes snap open and he punches the werewolf in its snout. It howls in pain and surprise, dropping him from its drooling maw, and they continue to fall down the rocky slope until they land in an empty parking lot far below the observatory.

\---

His knuckles are scraped raw to the point that he can see bone and a good chunk of his face has been peeled off like one peels a fruit skin. His arms are caked in the werewolf’s blood and his left leg is shaking and can’t fully support his weight, but he can hear his blood singing in his ears so it doesn’t matter.

It doesn’t matter.

The werewolf is in just as bad, if not worse, shape. There’s a gaping wound in its torso and it can’t turn its head to the right anymore. They’re both breathing hard though, so hard he thinks they’re both close to keeling over.

The werewolf snarls at him and he snarls back and his blood is chanting, demanding he finish this, that he kill it and he sees no reason to disagree. He and the wolf lunge at the same time.

He somehow manages to dig his thumbs into the wolf’s eye sockets and the thing shrieks as he keeps digging until there’s a sickening pop. A paw comes up and bats him away easily. He’s dazed for all of a few seconds before he struggles back up into a mostly standing position. The beast is trying to crawl away, whimpering and crying, and he just feels a blind rage come over him, seeing nothing but red (an image flashes briefly in his mind of Andy being mauled by the werewolves still up there, so no, this thing doesn’t get to have mercy because they sure as hell never show mercy to anyone) as he limps over to it and grips tightly under its jaw.

It claws weakly at him as he starts twisting and pulling on its skull until it tears clean off and there’s a spray of blood and it makes him think of dusters of blood from his dreams of Oklahoma.

He’s gasping for air now as he holds the wolf’s head and his blood is singing for more and it’s tempting – it’s so appealing – but no, he can’t. He drops the head and bites the inside of his cheek until he feels a burst of warmth and copper flood into his mouth.

His hands start shaking because it didn’t work, his blood is still singing, singing too loudly and it isn’t- he can’t- he can’t make it _stop,_ can’t reel it back in. 

He’s still itching for a fight, for more than a fight, to just rend anything and everything in his path.

Fuck, _fuck!_ He’s panicking and his breathing is getting erratic. With stumbling steps he manages to get to the phone booth on the other end of the empty parking lot – bloody hands smearing the glass panes – and somehow finding enough loose change in his pockets and dials the number to the phone behind the bar at the Last Round.

“Pick up, pick up,” he mutters as he closes his eyes and clenches his teeth, blood leaking out of his mouth. It’s too much, too much—

Damsel’s voice filters in through the other end of the line and he thinks he tells her where he is and asks for her to come get him before he bleeds out and to go save Andy from getting mauled to death because he can’t in this state, probably just end up getting them both killed, but he’s not sure, everything’s fading around the edges and he’s got a weird sense of vertigo going on.

He’s sliding down the phone booth’s glass wall, leaving behind streaks of blood as he descends, holding onto the phone like a lifeline; almost as if it’s the only thing keeping him from just outright dying.

\---

He stares, unseeing, ahead of him, at his messed up reflection in the bloodied glass. 

“--ines? Nines?”

Someone’s calling for him but it sounds wrong, like he’s underwater and he can’t come up.

“Nines? Nines! Look at me.”

There’s something moving in front of his face and it’s hurting his eyes to look at it.

“Shit, you’re really out of it.”

The world tilts and he’s being half carried, half dragged to a car. He slumps over in the back seat and then there’s a blood bag being held in front of him.

“Drink this.”

He does as he’s told and bites through the plastic and drains the bag dry. There’s car doors opening and closing, an engine starting, headlights turning on.

“Let’s get you out of here. You better not get bloodstains all over my seats or else you’re cleaning it up.”

Leaving. Yeah that sounds like a good idea except he can’t shake the feeling that he’s forgetting something – someone – and that he should go back and get them but he can’t remember who it is.

“Hey, don’t make me use the child lock on you, Nines, because I will.”

He hadn’t even realized he was trying to open the car door. He lets go of it but a heavy weight settles in the pit of his stomach.

\---

Nines comes to in a hotel room.

He’s covered in dried, flaking blood and there’s a repetitive throbbing in his head like someone decided to take an icepick to his skull.

Damsel shoves another blood pack into his hand and asks him what the hell happened because she found him half dead in a phone booth with a decapitated werewolf only a few feet away.

“Ambush. I dunno if it was Ming Xiao or LaCroix, but I’m betting it was that smug son of a bitch.”

She scowls and hisses out a lot of unflattering things about both LaCroix and Ming Xiao as she paces up and down the room, until she stops and looks at him as if she’s searching for something.

“I have some good news and some bad news about your… whatever he is. Which do you want first?”

“Good news,” he says tiredly because honestly he could really use it.

“Well, good news is that he’s still alive. Somehow managed to get out of Griffith Park, but I don’t know where he is,” she tells him and it feels like a weight has been lifted on his shoulders, but it doesn’t last long when she continues, “Bad news is that LaCroix ordered a blood hunt on him. He’s telling everyone the kid’s working for the Kuei-jin and that he killed you. It’s an obvious lie, but a blood hunt’s a blood hunt.”

Without a second thought he heaves himself to his feet with a grunted “Gotta find him,” only to get pushed back into a seated position.

“Like hell you’re going anywhere like this; a strong wind could knock you over. Look, even if you did find him you’re not going to be able to help him anyway. He’s safer on his own right now and you’re not even halfway done healing yet.” 

He remains silent because, yeah, he knows she’s right, but it doesn’t settle the desperate feeling trying to claw its way up his throat. He pushes it down, buries his head in his hands and tries to focus; they need a plan, a strategy, to take down both LaCroix and Ming Xiao tonight, because enough is enough.

All this bullshit needs to stop before the sun rises.

\---

The hotel room door creaks open and there stands Andy, a little roughed up but no worse for wear.

Without a word they crash into one another like waves to the shore, arms wrapped tightly, fiercely, around each other and both press a flurry of kisses onto the other in relief to see that neither is dead. He wants to drag Andy to bed and not have to go through a constant whiplash of “he’s probably dead, oh wait no he’s still alive thank god” but they don’t have time.

Apparently Andy is having the same thoughts because he’s tugging at Nines’ shirt and damn it, he would love doing nothing more than what the kid wants, but they really, _really_ don’t have time for it right now.

(If they’re both still alive at the end of the night though he definitely has plans on them holing up in his apartment for a week and letting someone else be the responsible one for a while.)

“We were set up, kid,” he manages to get out and that stills Andy’s movements. “Someone tried to get rid of us, and the list of suspects is short: LaCroix or Xiao.”

“LaCroix and Xiao exchanged secret vows before he proposed to you.”

He can hear his granddad’s voice from his dream echoing in his mind. _“ The signs are all there, mijo, plain as day. Do you see them?”_

Nines sure hell sees the signs now, hindsight and all that, and he hopes that it’s not too late to fix this mess.

"Fuck, the Kuei-jin and Lacroix? Even the Camarilla wouldn't let that fly - he wanted an alliance with me because his other one failed. That's twice they've tried to get me killed... and kid, it's not gonna end there - it's us or them. You got a preference?"

He already knows Andy’s answer (or hopes he does) but he’s gotta hear it; one last chance for the kid to leave all this crap behind if he really wants to.

“You have all of me,” the kid tells him, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

Nines returns the smile before a frown creeps its way onto his face; they’ve got work to do.

"I'd like to take Xiao's heart in my hands and squeeze the black out of it; and Lacroix - he wouldn't get off so easy. But after that wolf... I'm barely in one piece. You survived the werewolves, I'd bet you can handle this."

He hates having to send Andy back out into the fray, but there aren’t a whole lot of options for them at this point. The kid draws his attention when he pokes him in the side, clearly seeing the worry and hesitance on his face, and the kid gives him a _look,_ but there’s a touch of fondness in there.

“Where am I going?”

“I’ve already sent the troops out to raise hell all over the city. The Kuei-jin think we’re busy with the Cam, so… they won’t be expecting an attack. You know what’s gotta to be done, right?”

“Chinatown’s about to get the punchline.”

"Xiao's been in L.A. for too many nights - make tonight her last," Nines says, more than ready to end this once and for all. "Once Xiao's out of the way, head to Lacroix's tower. You oust Lacroix, and this whole train wreck comes to an end. I'm countin' on you."

“Sun sets on the evil eye and the ivory tower will fall.”

"Isaac's guaranteed me nobody's gettin' into Hollywood. I'll survive, but I wish I could be fighting at your side. This one's for L.A., kid - no pressure." 

“And this one is for me,” Andy says, a look of mischief in his eyes, as he presses one last kiss to Nines’ lips before he leaves.

\---

The New Year, 2005, is heralded by the top of LaCroix’s tower blowing up and a hail of fire and concrete pelt the streets below.

Sirens in the distance from all directions (“The New Year’s Riots” will be the headlines of the papers tomorrow, but that’s a concern for later) and dawn is an hour away which is why Nines and other Anarchs are out searching for anyone caught in the rubble, to get them into shelter before the sun catches them all.

He’s also looking for Andy, but Andy finds him, watching him with his mismatched eyes and a cheeky grin, a few wounds that have started to close up. He doesn’t let Andy out of his sight the entire time until he finally calls it, tells everyone to head indoors.

“The jester willingly crawled to his death, laughing all the way,” the kid tells him as they make their way up the stairs to Nines’ tiny apartment above the Last Round. “Smiling Jack made a friend and left a gift in the coffin. There’s still work to be done.”

He kicks the door shut behind them, eyes look around the mostly bare living room to make sure all the blackout curtains are still closed, before he pulls Andy in close.

“Nope. No doing anything productive for at least a week, we’ve earned a break,” Nines says as lifts Andy up, hands under thighs, Andy’s legs wrapping around Nines’ waist. There’s Andy's bright laughter that follows them all the way to bed and grins on both of their faces.

\---

He dreams of Oklahoma once more, but the skies are clear and his granddad is sitting in the blue rocking chair once more.

 _“You’ve got your work cut out for you, mijo. There’s gonna be a lot of cleaning up to do,”_ his granddad tells him, gesturing to the toxic puddle of the doppelganger, to the red herring’s corpse lying in the ruins of a rotted chair, to the ruined fields around them. _“Think you’ll be able to do it by yourself?”_

There’s someone coming up the road, but they stop halfway, waiting for him. When he looks – really _looks_ \- he knows who it is.

“By myself? No. With him though?” he nods towards the man waiting for him down the road. “Yeah, I think we’ll be able to get by just fine.”

He rises from his seat on the steps, ready to meet the man halfway when he stops, looks back at his granddad. He takes in the wrinkled but kind face, the crinkles around his eyes from when he laughs, the tobacco stains on his fingers. His granddad lets out a boisterous laugh as he waves him on.

 _“Go on, mijo, go get your man. Time and tide stand still for no one,”_ his granddad tells him with shining eyes. _“I’ll always be here on the farm. You’ll see me again.”_

He turns away and down the dirt road, leaving the farm in Oklahoma once more, and meets Andy halfway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im unsure about i feel about the beginning parts of this chapter but oh well its done.
> 
> i wanna do something from maybe andy's perspective or something that i didn't get to fit in here (like the part where the fledgling runs into samantha. i really wanted to put that in this but i couldn't really find a spot to make it fit w/ the flow), so idk if i wanna just tack it on this work after this chapter or if i wanna start a new one and just put them into a series so for now im just gonna mark this as complete and we'll see 
> 
> also don't worry about typos i'll be going over these chapters again and fixing them as i see 'em
> 
> and @AliaMael thank u so much for your comments dude!! they mean a lot to me


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